Tag: baseball

World Cup 2026: the global heel turn of Argentina

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I thought about waiting until after the finals of the World Cup to write this, but I realized that it doesn’t matter.  With it being Spain vs. Argentina in the final, it’s basically a match between the Colonizers versus the Racists in a matchup between two top-4 FIFA ranked squads, and at this point I’d say that I’m pulling for Spain solely because I’d been hoping anyone at all could stop the freight train that is Argentina, but there’s little reason to believe that all the memes, narratives, accusations and perceived favoritism towards Argentina is going to let up at this point, and it seems like the inevitable is going to remain, inevitable.

And that’s what this post is basically about, how throughout the course of this World Cup, it seems to me that Argentina has gradually gone from defending champions and home to Lionel Messi, to this gradual, increasingly disliked squad that everyone outside of Argentinians and/or front-running bandwagoners are rooting against, and the deeper that Argentina has advanced into the tournament, the stronger the disdain seems to be growing.

From what I have been observing, it has been because of several factors:

  1. Lionel Messi is getting the Shohei Ohtani treatment, as in absolutely anything and everything he does is being glorified ridiculously out of proportion. A goal?  An all-caps Twitter tweet from every single sports outlet on the planet.  An assist?  ALL CAPS.  Converting on a PK from penalty drawn by someone else?  ALL CAPS.  His reaction after a match?  ALL CAPS.  Like Ohtani, I have little reason to believe that Messi is actually a horrible person, but when the media is forcing him down everyone’s throats, resentment begins to creep upward.
  2. FIFAvoritism – with each match it becomes harder and harder to deny these accusations, and the public have gone from what they’ve been seeing with their own eyes, to internet bean counters statistically making nifty charts to document the perceived favoritism Argentina has been getting as far as things like strength of schedule, fouls drawn versus the fouls they commit, how many times VAR has ruled in their favor versus against, and just the narrative that FIFA is doing everything in their power to tip the scales to constantly be leaning favorably for Argentina, be it referee selections, locations of their matches. As the tournament has progressed, we’ve the growth of numerous memes, with my favorites being VARgentina, Fix It For Argetnina and Get yourself a partner that looks at you the way FIFA looks at Argentina.
  3. Historical – One thing I’ve enjoyed throughout this World Cup are all the historical jokes that have been made throughout the tournament, poking fun at events like the Revolutionary War, colonizing done by various countries, and other historical factoids, shaped into futbol matches. I didn’t know this, but it’s through the World Cup that I learned that Argentina is where many Nazi/German/Axis people fled to after World War II, and the correlation many have pointed out how their futbol squad basically has nobody of any dark pigmentation, especially compared to the numerous Latin countries’ rosters.  And that perception alone is worth drawing a lot of hate from the internet and casual sports fans.
  4. THAT’S RACIST! According to my au pair, Argentina is a pretty racist country.  Their history of having racist refugees seeking asylum there probably has something to do with that, but there’s still a ceiling to her opinion since she’s Brazilian, and they hate Argentinians like I hated Marylanders growing up in Virginia, and how I look down on Alabamans as a Georgia resident.  But then you have the coach of Egypt throwing up the crossed arm X gesture, signaling for racism during a match, grumblings from players from Cabo Verde saying they heard some racist remarks, and most recently England’s Jude Bellingham angrily getting into it with Argentina’s bench warmers after what appears to be in reaction to something he heard one say, and given the fact that he’s a person of color, people are making assumptions, and perhaps my au pair isn’t just being a nationalistic neighboring rival.

But above all else, is the fact that Argentina just keeps winning, and it seems like inevitability that they’re going to be the first repeat World Cup winner since Brazil repeated in 1958 and 1962.  Like the MJ’s Bulls, Kobe’s Lakers, Tom Brady’s Patriots, and Shohei Freddie’s Dodgers, everyone begins to turn on the winning teams, especially if they start developing large numbers of bandwagon and/or disingenuous fans.

Circling back to #2, it’s not even like Argentina really needs any help from FIFA or anyone who may or may not be moving things around to ensure that they win.  Argentina is the defending champs and ranked top-4 for a reason, and even if they weren’t getting excessive favoritism from refereeing, they still have to make the crosses and accurate headers and kicks and get the ball into the back of the net.  They’ve been living life in time after 90’ with all sorts of late-match dramatic goals against Egypt, Cabo Verde, Switzerland, and England, and favoritism or not, they’re making incredible scores happen.

It’s funny, because from colleagues and sports fan friends I speak with, I don’t think I’m along in seeing the things I’m seeing, especially with Argentina’s heel turn.  At the same time, this World Cup has also witnessed the increasing love-fest for Mexico, helping eliminate decades worth of character assassination of their country, mostly from the United States, as people from all over the world have seen how vibrant, lively and generally welcoming Mexico has been throughout the course of the tournament, with many pointing out just how quickly things simmered down in the excitement department, once Mexico was eliminated and matches were no longer being held in Mexico.

Regardless, whether Argentina wins the World Cup or not, I think the heel turn has already been completed.  It’s not that people really want or care if Spain can defeat them, it’s all about just wanting to see them lose.  And I guess if futbol really did operate in the wrestling bubble, just getting people to have that reaction, negative as it may be, is still win, especially if it draws money.

Just stfu and play ball, Mookie

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SI: All-Star Mookie Betts wants MLB to basically implement a mercy rule and avoid position players pitching

One of the tiniest consolations of watching a baseball game where the score gets out of hand, is the off-chance of getting to see a position player come into the game and pitch.  If cheering for the team that’s up by a margin that warrants the entry of a position player, it’s kind of a fun, rubbing-it-in kind of mentality that they’re clobbering the opponent so bad that this is happening.  And if cheering for the team that’s getting clobbered, it’s the moment where the white flag has been raised, and hopefully they can relax a little bit and enjoy the entertainment of seeing a guy more than likely loft some meatballs to the plate, but occasionally make some surprising highlights.

Frankly, some of the more memorable highlights that I can recall easily in spite of being a shitty baseball fan, come from position player pitching:

Every one of these plate appearances I could recall off the top of my head without any thinking necessary.  That’s the beauty of position player pitching, it’s low risk, low stakes, high chance of fun, high chance of making positive memories.

And Mookie Betts wants it all to go away.

A man who has won four World Series, an MVP award, and is making $20 million dollars this year, $170 million in his career, with about $120 million waiting for him in deferred pay, all for playing a children’s game, somehow wants to play less baseball, even if it it’s just removing one of the more rare scenarios, and removing position player pitching and basically having a mercy rule instead.

Yeah, that’s never going to happen because of things called television deals, advertising rights, time to move concessions and merchandise, greedy owners getting their money’s worth out of their indentured servants, but (what should be) most importantly, fans getting the product that they volunteered to get when they decided to invest their time in a baseball game.

But fuck you anyway for even suggesting such a selfish, poor-optics and tone-deaf idea, because it’s not like having the opportunity to hack away at pitches from dudes who haven’t seriously pitched since they were teenagers is truly ruining your life.

Despite the fact that he players for the Dodgers, I generally have no qualm with Mookie Betts.  He seems like a decent guy, likes bowling, always shown to be real chill, one of my favorite authors adores the man.  But this absurd suggestion coming from him creeps him into Anthony Rendon-territory of coming off as selfish and greedy, wanting to even suggest reducing the amount of baseball he has to play despite making multi-generational wealth playing it.  I don’t, really agree with the notion that everyone gets an opinion on the matter, especially when the one trying to make it is a guy who makes absurd amounts of money playing baseball. 

This is where I’d say, how hard is it to take an at-bat against a guy probably throwing no harder than 60 mph, but apparently Mookie has but only one plate appearance against a position player, this season, against the Pirates’ Tyler Callihan; where he flew out to center.  So I guess his salt at not being able to basically get a free home run or base hit, and denting his batting stats by a ten-thousandth of a point entitles him to suggest implementing a mercy rule for everyone, got it.

In this regard, Mookie can go fuck himself.  Position player pitching should remain indefinitely, and it wouldn’t matter if it were Mookie Betts suggesting this, his douchebag teammate Dalton Rushing, or even someone I enjoyed like Freddie Freeman, Martin Prado, Chipper Jones, Jonny Venters, David DeJesus or Cal Ripken, Jr., my reaction would be the same, fuck off and stop acting like an overpaid man-child and take your at-bats against the backup catcher or veteran all-star just wanting to have some fun.  It’s the one of the only consolations of a lopsided game, and often times a reminder that baseball is supposed to be fun.

Wonder what the Mormon faith feels about enabling, Bryce?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Philadelphia Inquirer: video emerges of MLB star Bryce Harper giving personalized message to FanDuel gambling addict, with implications that it was done so to continue to encourage gambler to keep pissing away money

Personally, I enjoy gambling despite the fact that I don’t do it nearly as much as I did when I was in my twenties.  Obviously, I am an enthusiast of sports as well, seeing as how a good 40-50% of my brog’s content is usually related to sports, or at least is full of sports analogies, flexing the encyclopedic wealth of sports knowledge I like to believe I have.

However, gambling on sports, is something that I don’t do.

Because I have never won a sports bet in my entire life.

Like really, I can trace it all back to the three times in which I’ve bet actual money on sports, with all three ending up with L’s:

  • In 1996, I bet a classmate, ice cream (35¢), that the Pittsburgh Steelers would defeat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XXX. Honestly, this was a reckless bet that only a 5th grader would be capable of making, seeing as how my NFL knowledge was nowhere as comprehensive as my NBA knowledge, and I was just mostly just being a contrarian and banking on the fact that there was no way the Cowboys would win a third Super Bowl in four years.  I was wrong
  • In 2006, I bet ($50) on I think, BoDog, that the Washington Redskins would defeat the Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round of the playoffs. The Redskins were surging, powered by their white-on-white jersey combo, coming off of a big wild-card weekend win against the Buccaneers.  Furthermore, Seattle RB Shaun Alexander was out with a concussion, and I thought the Seachickens were ripe to be upset by a Redskins team with momentum.  I was wrong
  • In 2008, I bet ($20) in Las Vegas, that the Tampa Bay Rays would beat the Boston Red Sox in game 5 of the ALCS. Scott Kazmir was starting and he was an absolute Red Sox killer, and to his credit, he did hold Boston to 2 hits, 0 runs in six innings, but between the 7th, 8th and 9th innings, the Tampa Bay bullpen imploded, allowing 8 runs, including a walk-off hit in the 9th that proved me wrong and made me vow to not bet on sports anymore because what could be more emblematic of such a message than a playoff team blowing a 7-0 lead in three innings.  Humorously, I had seen that there was a bet for a five-inning official game wager, and had I done that one, I would’ve won, but the potential to win a whole $5 moar dollars led me to the full nine-inning bet instead, and look where that got me.

The point is, I’m no stranger to gambling, but gambling on sports is just something I don’t do.  I’m fortunate that in spite of the competitive nature I can sometimes exhibit, I (hopefully) don’t have that facet of my brain that snaps and goes off the deep end when it comes to gambling and I’ve always been able to restrain myself from making any dives into oblivion when it comes to the pitfall of one more time that unfortunately befalls many others.

Like this poor dude in the article who has wagered over $18M* through FanDuel betting, and has lost $2M over the last 5-6 years, which doesn’t sound that bad as far as the ratio of what he’s bet versus what he’s lost, but considering he’s lost his house and contemplated suicide, there’s a lot of murky details in the dark water that would really help if were made clearer.

*unclear in the scope of the story of how much of this $18M is actual money and not promotional or bonus funds because it does matter in the grand spectrum and could be misleading if left unclear

The last thing I’d want is to miss paying any sort of bill because of gambling, much less my mortgage, to the frequency in which I fall into foreclosure and ultimately lose my family’s home.  This is a stark reminder of the potentially fatal consequences of gambling addiction, and I’m always astonished at how most everyone knows this, but we’re still in the present reality where it’s very much not just a meme:

Welcome back to SportsCenter presented by ESPN Bet, for more on the Ohtani situation we go to our FanDuel MLB Insider Jeff Passan at our DraftKings Studio in Los Angeles brought to you by Caesar’s Sportsbook

The crazy horrific variable about this whole story is the involvement of an actual, high-profile, top-tier professional athlete in Bryce Harper, where the high-level narrative that is perceived is that he made a personalized video at the encouragement of FanDuel, to passively encourage this addict to continue gambling, because he’s getting a very special incentive because of his spend history.

There is absolutely zero manner in which this is not a horrible look for FanDuel, for MLB, for the Philadelphia Phillies, and especially for Bryce Harper, on several levels, including one that I’d like to isolate being, his supposedly devout Mormon faith.

Yes, I think all religions are full of shit, and Mormonism is probably no exception when it comes to gray areas and loose interpretations, but the Church of LDS supposedly is opposed to all forms of gambling, so it’s really weird and unnerving that a Mormon like Bryce Harper that has the influence (money, status) to get married at one of their sacred castles, is basically an accomplice to enabling a gambler to continue to ruin the lives of himself and his family, and there’s nothing that can be done or said at this amount of evidence where anyone comes out looking good from it.

It’s like, because Harper himself is not doing the actual gambling, it’ll be swept under the rug as something harmless, and that he and his faith are not responsible for those who do, and that there’s no explicit rule against enabling, which is precisely what he is doing and what the intention of the video was meant to do.

Also, want to iso this, because wtf:

your host Bryttanni at FanDuel

I mean we’ve all seen some truly Mr. Garvey names in our lives these days, but this one actually manages to stand out.

I’m really curious to see how this pans out, or if Harper, the Phillies and MLB are just going to keep their lips zipped, and hope for it to go away, especially when the inevitable strike and lockout is going to take place in the winter because all the owners and all the players are a bunch of greedy fucks and I’m inclined to blow the whole sport out of existence in spite of how much I love the game, just because it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be any other way to eradicate the greed and corruption otherwise.

But at least Harper, and anyone else entwined with FanDuel or any other gambling racket will have a way to make some coin on the side when next season is cancelled due to work stoppage, and I’m sure no more degenerate gamblers are going to suffer and possibly die in the process.

ABS is the gift that keeps on giving MLB

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Larry Brown Sports: seven ancient-tenured MLB umpires accept buyouts from the league to retire early, including notoriously oft-questioned umpire, CB Bucknor

Make absolutely no mistake, this story is probably 95% on account of the fact that the automated ball and strike system has nuclear-power kicked open the door of exposing umpire ineptitude, with the other 5% being that there’s an extremely high chance that the entire league is going on strike after the 2026 season and that there will be no or a shortened 2027 season on the near horizon, and Beaner wanted to give their old boys club a chance to get out ahead of time.

But really, this has almost entirely to do with the fact that the ABS system has wreaked havoc on the umpire fraternity, and this seems like the safest way to get many of the most exposed umpires out the door with the most minimal amount of further humiliation at how bad they are at their jobs.

I know it’s been a divisive topic among baseball fans, with lots of old school old heads not liking the advancement of change, and that old school part of me can understand it, but I’ve been a sports fan long enough to know the frustration and aggravation of missed officiating ruining and tarnishing games, so even if it means that there’s a chance that it goes against the outcoming I’m hoping for, I’m generally accepting of the fact that this newer system of accountability is in place, in the event it helps the probabilities that I’m hoping for.

Let’s not sugar coat it, baseball umpiring has been among the worst when it comes to league oversight.  No other major American sport, do fans know the names and faces of officiating crews more than they do in baseball, primarily for reasons of disdain, dislike and hatred.  It didn’t take me long at all to learn who Tim McClelland, Joe West and Angel Hernandez were in the past of notorious umpires, and it took me no time at all to understand the significance of CB Bucknor headlining the latest list of umpires getting pushed out the door.

And not to go unnoticed is Laz Diaz, whom despite not being the headlining name, was very clearly listed second in the list of umpires sent packing.  Whether it was intentional or not, smart of him to sneak in underneath CB, so that some of his heat is mitigated by a worse umpire.  But make no mistake, I’m about as pleased to see Laz getting the boot as much as Bucknor is, because he too, fucking blows.

I digress though, when change this large crashes over, it sometimes turns into those scenarios where we might not like the devil we don’t know that’s looming ahead of us, versus the devils we just sent out to pasture.  I still believe that there’s an extremely low chance that there’s even a baseball season in 2027, given the MLB Owners basically speed-running the inevitability of a work stoppage, with their list of demands that the players will more than likely absolutely not agree to, but regardless of what happens when baseball is back on the field after the 2026 season, as far as the umpiring goes, it’s probably going to be, one of baseball’s favorite cliches, a brave new world.

But at least it will be one where umpire culture is getting something of a hard-reset and hoping that we the fans (and those like me who pretend to be them) won’t ironically know and react to the names of every umpire that is slated for the games we want to watch.

Seoul Searching, circa 2026

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I feel like there’s got to be an industry for creating end-of-vacation travel packages that help mitigate the downward emotional connotation of a conclusion to a trip.  Not sure how it would entirely entail, but stuff like low-stress return travel, not having to do death marches at inconvenient times, and any methods of help reduce the strain of time changes and logistics.

Of course, this is a hypothetical thought that comes to mind while mythical wife and I are en route home after two weeks without kids, as we’ve traversed through Seoul, Singapore, the ambiguous open seas somewhere between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and wherever else, before a crash course through Hong Kong, and on our way back to ‘Murica, while trying to fight the feelings of dread of returning to normal life although we’re both looking forward to seeing the girls again.

This was, for all intents and purposes, the first true adults-only vacation that we’ve been on, since, our honeymoon, due to the unintentional expediency in which our kids came into the picture, as well as a fucking pandemic.  Not necessarily by design, during the course of our trip, a lot of shit happened, noteworthy to me, like the Knicks winning the NBA championship while we were in the air, missing ALL of the World Cup group stage, while trying to catch some action while hilariously on the other side of the planet, Father’s Day, and our anniversary, where we entered year 8 of marriage dear god where has the time gone

But, in true autist fashion, of course I jotted down notes and blurbs of things and thoughts that came to mind during travels because of course it’s got to become shit for me to write about in the brog that nobody reads except for me.

The last time I was in Korea was nine years ago, when I came with mythical wife on what was her first-ever visit to the Motherland. She has since been back a few times without me because she hates traveling with me, but I was excited to return because it has been quite some time since I’d been.

I didn’t think that much would be different since my last visit, but I suppose it was naive of me to think that, because it was almost culture shock to count all the ways things had changed since my last time out here.  If I had to try to nail the reasons, I would say that it’s probably a combination of boy band BTS going globally mainstream, K-Pop Demon Hunters, and the general mass popularization of Korean culture on a global scale, because for the most part, Seoul was absolutely crawling with foreign tourists.

Naturally, this is me saying that it was at times, uncomfortably and inconveniently crowded at times, and I’d be lying if I didn’t think to myself thoughts about how Thanos Was Right and other nihilistic things that stem from my general aversion to crowds.

Continue reading “Seoul Searching, circa 2026” →

Bobby Bonilla Day presents the 2026 MLB All-Deferred Money Team

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This year, I actually learned that there was a Bobby Bonilla in history before Bobby Bonilla took the Bobby Bonilla deal that turned every July 1st into Bobby Bonilla Day.

And it was actually a player for the Atlanta Braves, which is astounding seeing as how as a, for lack of a better term, Braves fan, I did not know about this, as well as the fact that the Braves are among the cheapest teams in the galaxy these days, so it’s doubly amazing to see how they were once wrapped up in a Bobby Bonilla-like arrangement, ever.

But in 1984, the Braves signed reliever Bruce Sutter to a six-year, $9.6M contract, with $4.8M of that deferred, at an interest rate of 13%.  And between the years of 1992 and 2022, the Braves paid him $1.12M a year, and I don’t know how and when the interest compounded through the life of repayment, but he was paid $9.1M in 2022, the final installment of the pact; and I don’t know the specific date of the payment, but it should be noted that he also died that same year, and I think it would be ironically funny if the narrative were that he stayed alive long enough to ensure that the cheap-ass Braves paid him his money before he could rest.

Also impressive to me is that within the duration of the repayment plan, the Braves’ ownership had transferred from the free-spending Ted Turner regime, into the stuffy corporate penny-pinching Liberty Media ownership company that as choked the team into this mid-market team, crying poor all the time, caring more about fiscal responsibility to shareholders versus trying to remotely operating a baseball club to victory.

I’m sure Sutter’s contract was an excruciating blight for the Liberty Media bean counters to inherit, and they probably were counting the days of the last 12-13 years of the deal, and probably remains a large part of why the Braves will never play in such deferral tactics, regardless of how effective it is proving to be capable of.

Needless to say, I’m not sure how accurate the math is, since deferred monies have a tendency to be invisible in online payroll records, but Sutter managed to parlay $4.8M into at least $41.58M through a Bobby Bonilla-like payment plan, and seeing as how there was a twelve-year overlap between when Sutter’s payments and the Bonilla’s started, I’m surprised the whole thing didn’t meme out to be Bruce Sutter Day instead.

That’s the strength of the whole LOL Mets meme, I suppose.

Anyway, it’s July 1st, so that obviously means it’s that time of the year again, where a 63-year old Bobby Bonilla receives a $1,193,248 paycheck from the New York Mets because they didn’t want to pay him $5M in 2000 after 141 horrible plate appearances in 1999, and decided that it was more preferable to pay him nearly $36M over 30 years starting a decade later.

And in honor of Bobby Bonilla Day, I take my yearly deep dive into the state of the MLB to try and construct a hypothetical roster of players receiving deferred money, share some stats about them, as well as share all sorts of shade about the practice, the cheapness of the Braves, and other opinionated takes.

Continue reading “Bobby Bonilla Day presents the 2026 MLB All-Deferred Money Team” →

Been a rough year for Kim Hye-song already

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Prior to the season in the WBC, Kim had to be a part of the Team Korea that sure, finally managed to get out of groups for the first time in an eternity, but they also took some embarrassing losses to Japan and Taiwan.  Capped off by getting mercy-rule walked-off on by the Dominican Republic to end their run.

Comes back to the United States to finish up Spring Training, only to be told that despite hitting .407 with an OPS of .967, he is being sent down to start the season in the minor leagues, citing his WBC commitment taking away from a proper preseason preparation regimen.  I didn’t really say anything over social media platforms because I frankly didn’t want to deal with the likely outrage of Dodgers fans, racist weebs and all other pleebs of the internet, but I found it suspicious that Kim would get such rationale as justification to send him to the minors, despite the fact that all of his Japanese teammates were in the exact same boat, and weren’t getting demoted, but that I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise to see a team full of Japanese players and constantly on the country of Japan’s dick 25/8 sending their lone Korean teammate away. 

Because it’s one of those things that nobody that isn’t Korean would really understand, and it wasn’t worth the aggravation of triggering the ire of the internet, but it’s definitely something that nobody would be willing to admit to probably being the case.

Anyway, Kim dominates Triple-A because it’s too easy for the caliber of player he is, in spite of the limited Spring Training, hitting .346 with an OPS of .822, and at the very first injury reported to the Dodgers, he’s immediately called back up, where he’s already hitting .308 with a .796 OPS.

And six games in is all it takes for Kim to be given the all look same treatment, and be mistaken for one of his more famous Japanese teammates, as SNY’s Gary Cohen states “Yamamoto looking on” when the camera panned to Kim watching in the dugout.

Like I said, it’s slights like these that nobody who isn’t Korean would really understand just how aggravating they can be, and why Koreans like me have these chips on our shoulders when it comes to rolling our eyes at the insufferably weeb-ey excessive praise for anything Japan that Weeb-ey America is so subject to falling for.

The tiny, in all fairness, factor to this is the fact that it was from the visiting team’s broadcast, and seeing as how the Mets haven’t had a Korean player since like Koo Dae-Sung, they’re less educated when it comes to disambiguation between Asians, but if I had to put money on it, I can’t imagine that this racist bungling of telling Asians apart hasn’t happened among Dodgers media either.

But the point remains it happened, it’s embarrassing for those who were apart of it, from Cohen, as well as the cameraman who put the camera on Kim after being prompted by discussions of Yamamoto.  And like most incidents that are insensitive towards Koreans and Asians in general, the backlash for this will be vastly less severe, acknowledged or taken nearly as seriously as if it would be if it involved black people or Hispanics.

If it hasn’t happened already, I don’t imaging there will be any sort of apology from Cohen or SNY, and while everyone is laughing about it, I can lighten up and see the humor in it, but also still remain disappointed and feel dejected by the continuous failure of white people and white people media who love to police others and tell them to be better, while continuously failing to take their own fucking advice.

It doesn’t matter how well Kim Hye-song plays or doesn’t play, if people keep getting him mixed up with the other Chinamen on his own team, I’d rather see him go elsewhere, where he might actually get some fucking respect.